Im afraid we live in loopy times. How else to account for the latest entries in Americas culture wars: science museum docents donning combat gloves against rival fundamentalist tour groups and evolution on trial in a Pennsylvania federal court. For those keeping score, so far this year its Monkeys: 0, Monkey Business: 82. That's 82 evolution versus creationism debates in school boards or towns nationwidethis year alone. [1]

This past summer, when most Americans were distracted by thoughts of beaches and vacations or the high price of gasoline (even before the twin hits of Katrina and Rita), 2 heavy-weight political figures joined the President of the United States to weigh in on a supposedly scientific issue. US Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Arizona Senator John McCain, and President George W. Bush each endorsed the teaching of intelligent design alongside evolution in the science classroom. Can anyone reasonably convince me that these pronouncements were not just cynical political punditry but, rather, were expressions of sincere beliefs?

So you have to ask yourself in light of all of these events, are we headed back to the past with no escape in the future? Are we trapped in a new period of history when science, once again, is in for the fight of its life?

In times like these, as inundated as we are by technical wizardry, one might conclude that American technological supremacy and know-how would lead, inevitably, to a deeper understanding or trust of science. Well, it doesnt. Perhaps just the opposite is true. Technology and gee whiz gadgetry has led to more suspicion rather than less. And a typical Americans understanding of science is limited at best. As far as evolution is concerned, if youre a believer in facts, scientific methods, and empirical data, the picture is even more depressing. A recent survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Science found that 64 percent of respondents support teaching creationism side by side with evolution in the science curriculum of public schools. A near majority48 percentdo not believe that Darwins theory of evolution is proven by fossil discoveries. Thirty-three percent believe that a general agreement does not exist among scientists that humans evolved over time [2].

What if we become a nation that cant chew gum, walk down the street, and transplant embryonic stem cells all at the same time? Does it matter?

New York Times journalist Cornelia Dean, who balances her time between science reporting for the Times and lecturing at Harvard, told me that she believes that science stands in a perilous position. Science, as an institution, has largely ceded the microphone to people who do not necessarily always embrace the scientific method, she says. Unless scientists participate in the public life of our country, our discourse on a number of issues of great importance becomes debased [3].

Others, such as journalist Chris Mooney, point to the increasing politicization of science as a pollutant seeping into our nations psyche. In his recent book, The Republican War on Science, Mooney spells out the danger of ignorance in public life when ideology trumps science.

Science politicization threatens not just our public health and the environment but the very integrity of American democracy, which relies heavily on scientific and technical expertise to function. At a time when more political choices than ever before hinge upon the scientific and technical competence of our elected leaders, the disregard for consensus and expertiseand the substitution of ideological allegiance for careful assessmentcan have disastrous consequences [4].

Jon D. Miller, PhD, a political scientist on faculty at Northwestern Universitys School of Medicine, believes that the sophisticated questions of biology that will confront each and every American in the 21st Century will require that they know the difference between a cell and a cell phone and are able to differentiate DNA from MTV. For decades, Miller has been surveying Americans about their scientific knowledge. We are now entering a period where our ability to unravel previously understood or not understood questions is going to grow extraordinarily, says Miller. As long as you are looking at the physics of nuclear power plants or the physics of transistors [all 20th Century questions] it doesnt affect your short-term belief systems. You can still turn on a radio and say it sounds good but you dont have to know why it works. As we get into genetic medicine, infectious diseases if you dont understand immunity, genetics, the principles of DNA, youre going to have a hard time making sense of these things [5].

Culture Wars and 82 Evolution Debates

Yet in some corners today, knowledge isnt really the problem. Its anti-knowledge that is beginning to scare the scientific community. Glenn Branch, deputy director of the National Center for Science Education, calls 2005 a fairly busy year when he considers the 82 evolution versus creationism flare-ups that have occurred at the state, local, and individual classroom levels so far. According to a spring 2005 survey of science teachers, the heat in the classroom was not coming from Bunsen burners or exothermic reactions but rather from a pressure on teachers to censor. The National Science Teachers Associations informal survey of its members found that 31 percent of them feel pressured to include creationism, intelligent design, or other nonscientific alternatives to evolution in their science classroom [1]. Classrooms arent the only places feeling the heat. Science museums have also become conflict zones. In her New York Times article, Challenged by Creationists, Museums Answer Back, Dean detailed special docent training sessions that will enable the guides to be better armed to deal with visitors who reject settled precepts of science on religious grounds [6].

These ideological battles arent likely to vanish any time soon. If anything, an organized and emboldened fundamentalist religious movement buttressed by political power in Washington will continue to challenge accepted scientific theory that collides with religious beliefs. So one must ask, is it too farfetched to see these ideological battles spilling over into areas of medical research and even into funding at the National Institutes of Health?

Now I am not asking for a world that doesnt respect religious belief. My education as a Roman Catholic balanced creed and science. In the classroom of my youth, one nun taught creationism in religion class while another taught evolution in science, and never the twain did meet.

Where Is the Medical Community?

The medical community as a whole has been largely absent from todays public debates on science. Neither the American Medical Association nor the American Psychiatric Association has taken a formal stand on the issue of evolution versus creationism. When physicians use their power of political persuasion in state legislatures and the US Congress, its generally on questions more pertinent to their daily survivalMedicare reimbursement, managed care reform, and funding for medical research. Northwesterns Miller believes that the scientific community cant fight the battle alone and that, as the attacks against science accelerate, the medical community will have to use its privileged perch in society to make the case for science. You have to join your friends, so when someone attacks the Big Bang, when someone attacks evolution, when someone attacks stem cell research, all of us rally to the front. You cant say its their problem because the scientific community is not so big that we can splinter 4 or more ways and ever still succeed doing anything [5].

So what does one do? How can a medical student, a resident, or a physician just beginning to build a career become active in these larger public battles? Burt Humburg, MD, a resident in internal medicine at Penn States Hershey Medical Center, is one role model. Hes been manning the evolutionary ramparts since his medical school days in Kansas in the late 1990s when he became active in Kansas Citizens for Science. On a brief vacation from his residency volunteering as a citizen advocate for the federal trial in Pennsylvania, he said education is the key role for the physician. While he realizes that medical students, residents and physicians might not view themselves as scientists, per se, he sees himself and his colleagues as part of the larger scientific collective that cant afford to shirk its duty. The town scientist is the town doctor, so whether we want it or not, we have the mantlethe trappingsof a scientist [7].

It is time for the medical community, through the initiative of individual physicians, to address not only how one can heal thy patient, but also how one can heal thy nation. There are many ways to get involved; from the most rudimentaryattending school board meetings, sending letters to the editor, and volunteering at the local science museumto the more demandingrunning for office, encouraging a spouse or partner to do so, or supporting candidates (especially financially) who are willing to speak out for science. As Tip ONeill, the larger-than-life Speaker of the House of Representatives, famously declared, All politics is local. Speak out for science. Isnt that a message that should be advanced in every physicians office?

Northwesterns Jon Miller concedes that speaking out may come with a price, It wont make [physicians]...popular with many people but is important for any profession, particularly a profession based on science to do so [5]. Consider this: shouldnt civic leadership be embedded in the mind of every blooming physician? In the end, doesnt combating this virulent campaign of anti-knowledge lead us back to that old adage of evolutionary leadership by example, Monkey see, monkey do? Seize the day, Doc.

References

1. Survey indicates science teachers feel pressure to teach nonscientific alternatives to evolution [press release]. Arlington, Va: National Science Teachers Association; March 24, 2005. Available at: http://www.nsta.org/pressroom&news_story_ID=50377. Accessed November 21, 2005. 2. The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press: Reading the polls on evolution and creationism, Pew Center Pollwatch. September 28, 2005. Available at: http://people-press.org/commentary/display.php3?AnalysisID=118. Accessed November 21, 2005. 3. Dean, Cornelia. E-mail response to author. September 27, 2005. 4. Mooney C. The Republican War on Science. New York, NY: Basic Books; 2005. 5. Miller, Jon D. Telephone interview with author. September 29, 2005. 6. Dean C. Challenged by creationists, museums answer back. The New York Times. September 20, 2005. F1. 7. Humburg, Burt C. MD. Telephone interview with author. October 3, 2005. Paul Costello is executive director of communications and public affairs for Stanford University School of Medicine. The viewpoints expressed on this site are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the AMA.TOPICS:Culture/Society; EditorialKEYWORDS:ama; crevolist; idisjunkscienceNavigation: use the links below to view more comments.first1-50, 51-100, 101-150, 151-200 ... 351-385nextlast

Lest there be any doubt ID is the enemy not just of science, but of scientific medicine.

Since when ID professed destruction of Darwinism? Since when a questioned theory meant its death? Since when a theory was entitled? That's no theory then, it's buffonery.

Darwinists have only themselves to blame for the scientific establisment's entitlement mentality buffonery. Sellers of products have a conflict of interest with the product, and, yes, science at any level is not perfect, it's something to be sold as is and is bought or not, period.

The abuse of the word science by scientists in order to justify its public funding is ridiculous. This is not about Darwinism, these are metaphores about public schools and pet public funding of subjects deemed "scientific" by a closed circuit of beneficiaries from working in those programs.

4
posted on 12/03/2005 6:31:27 AM PST
by JudgemAll
(Condemn me, make me naked and kill me, or be silent for ever on my gun ownership and law enforcement)

Are we trapped in a new period of history when science, once again, is in for the fight of its life?

An absolute ridiculous statement of the "entitled" scientists to tell us.

I'd like to see these people at the AMA worrying about school teachers who cannot read nor do math and teach fisting and gay love.

Where was the AMA when such "high science" was throated down little kids....knowing it would confuse their roles and identities in life as whether they ought to build on life or be little sex slaves of partners.

5
posted on 12/03/2005 6:35:50 AM PST
by JudgemAll
(Condemn me, make me naked and kill me, or be silent for ever on my gun ownership and law enforcement)

You know, I don't have a horse in this race (I don't really believe in either) but the vigor with which opponents of ID are fighting this seems to be a bit extreme and over-the-top of late.

That's because you don't have a horse in the race, whereas we are fighting for the integrity of what we've spend a large part of our lives and our professional careers doing. One very important element of practical politics is to be very wary of the core issues of others. Evolution is one among many issues for the religious right, and less important, surely, than abortion or gay marriage; it's an absolutely core issue for scientists, particularly biological scientists. When a dog snarls at you, particularly one of those back-of-the-throat snarls, it's time to back off.

to challenge accepted scientific theory that collides with religious beliefs.

Accepted scientific theory vs. religious belief.

A belief is a lead one follows and attempts to prove true by living by it. What is wrong with such spiritual intuition?

As for challenging accepted theories, it always happens, and, it often based on intuitions of one kind or the other, pushing the whole thing with one's own life at stake.

I never see a scientist putting his own life by the "accepted theory", because, guess what, they all cheated and sinned in their lives and should not be alive if they were not subsidized by their own cheating.

Science cannot be cheated, but when scientists try to make people believe they live by it and do not cheat, it's a big lie. Proof is that if they lived by Darwin they probably would never make it where they're at. Einstein was not nurtured in a jungle.

9
posted on 12/03/2005 6:47:11 AM PST
by JudgemAll
(Condemn me, make me naked and kill me, or be silent for ever on my gun ownership and law enforcement)

You know, I don't have a horse in this race (I don't really believe in either) but the vigor with which opponents of ID are fighting this seems to be a bit extreme and over-the-top of late.

How do you figure? It's the same as the church telling Galileo not to teach that the earth revolves around the sun, or at least to also teach the earth centric model. Do you think the science community should meet this with a half-hearted, ho-hum defense?

Evolution has grave weaknesses that its proponents have struggled mightily to paper over or ignore from the time of Darwin forward by employing the Kiplingesque approach of "just so" myths. "Some chemicals bubbled happily in a rock crevice in on a paleolithic earthscape. An aimless bolt of lightning struck and the chemicals said, 'I got it! let's become DNA!""

Being blinded by their materialist worldview, evolutionists cannot explain the genesis of information or intelligence let alone acknowledge the all-important role that these immaterial factors play in the development of life. Wholly bereft of any argument based in science evolutionists are forced to resort to personally attacking the people who raise such important questions.

You and your fellow evolutionists are in trouble, RWP, because your theory sucks. The more honest among you (Crick, Denton, Kauffman et al) have admitted it. It has an enormous and embarrassing gap that you can only fill by pleading 1) it came from somewhere else (which merely begs the question), or that something magical happened (the Santa Fe group), or by completely ignoring it as if ignorance were a sufficient explanation.

And if you can't answer it, you'll be damned if you'll allow anyone else to try, hence these feeble screechings from your allies in the AMA and related bodies that are quite obviously attempting not to join the debate but to intimidate others into silence.

Frankly, in the end I do not care if it is theory A, B or C, I just see some strange hypocrisy... ie. only when it touches scientists' wallets or stature do we see them coming out the closet.

This deplorable "incident" is ongoing at hundreds of schools nowadays, doing "sex-ed" classes that have nothing bilogical nor scientific about them, but pure social feelings based.

If the AMA were worried about science in school, they'd destroy the unions, the NEA and the retard teacher certification programs as well as flushed public schools of all the crap bogus curriculum they provide. ID is a drop in the bucket. And it's funny it is the RELIGIOUS and NOT THE SCIENTISTS who complain about curriculums and standards, when it should be the latter taking the lead apparenlty, but apparently they made a disgrace of their own tenures because the obessession for the title was meant to care for them, not for the care of the title itself.

I'm a flight instructor and can teach anyone from age 5 to 99 to fly most anything, from bullets to jet airplanes in two languages, but retarded idiots who can't even speak well or write English insist they can teach French better than I because they have the "certificate credentials". Schools will not hire me and protect retards. Lawyers and cops will sue me coz I handle a gun in front of kids and let them touch it supervized, while doctors of the AMA stand there and blame me for exposing kids to "dangerous guns and science". It's ridiculous.

No, what this is about is Marxist theory: matter precedes thought with "Darwinism" used as a trojanhorse code word for instituting slavery by the flesh and materials. To me, matter is meaningless without, yes, a meaning behind it: ie. a bird with chicks is not necessarily a mother of the chicks, but a man properly feeding those chicks is more a mother to them. That however flies in the face of race based entitlement mentalities who try to insist that Darwinism is at the basis of the "fact" that "women make better mothers", or lions can't raise calves.

15
posted on 12/03/2005 7:13:07 AM PST
by JudgemAll
(Condemn me, make me naked and kill me, or be silent for ever on my gun ownership and law enforcement)

"Some chemicals bubbled happily in a rock crevice in on a paleolithic earthscape. An aimless bolt of lightning struck and the chemicals said, 'I got it! let's become DNA!"

It was Pasteur who indeed proved that life does not occur/evolve readily spontaneously, that it occured through infections. "Darwinists" of today are in fact more on the side of spontaneous generation cult that attacked the inventor of the vaccine himself than on the side of science.

17
posted on 12/03/2005 7:16:37 AM PST
by JudgemAll
(Condemn me, make me naked and kill me, or be silent for ever on my gun ownership and law enforcement)

You know, I don't have a horse in this race (I don't really believe in either) but the vigor with which opponents of ID are fighting this seems to be a bit extreme and over-the-top of late.

You have to perhaps consider that the subject of the debate is a political movement disguised as science which is saying, "Naturalistic explanations are impossible and will never be found, so we might as well just officially punt and say 'Goddidit!'"

You don't learn anything from a "science" like that. It has no place in science class. Thus, the opposition will probably be nearly total from those with a brain.

The main pusher of ID, an organization called the Discovery Institute, has admitted that ID has no classroom-ready content directly regarding ID. What they want to rush into class now is something called "the controversy," which is a collection of recycled creationist arguments against evolution with some minor new wrinkles by Behe and Dembski.

In other words, the bag of ID is still empty just now, but we want to throw in a grab-bag of old, discredited screeches that another theory is wrong. This cannot be justfied on the grounds of science education, so why do it at all?

When ID does something to increase the sum of human knowledge, they can put it in science class.

19
posted on 12/03/2005 7:21:00 AM PST
by VadeRetro
(Liberalism is a cancer on society. Creationism is a cancer on conservatism.)

Evolution has grave weaknesses that its proponents have struggled mightily to paper over or ignore from the time of Darwin forward by employing the Kiplingesque approach of "just so" myths. "Some chemicals bubbled happily in a rock crevice in on a paleolithic earthscape. An aimless bolt of lightning struck and the chemicals said, 'I got it! let's become DNA!""\

The theory of evolution does not discuss the origin of life. This has been repeated enough times that you are certain to be aware of it, and therefore the above is just an intellectually dishonest straw man.

Being blinded by their materialist worldview, evolutionists cannot explain the genesis of information or intelligence let alone acknowledge the all-important role that these immaterial factors play in the development of life. Wholly bereft of any argument based in science evolutionists are forced to resort to personally attacking the people who raise such important questions.

This is mere vapid hand-waving. It is perfectly possible to come up with scientifically defensible schemes for the genesis of information - as for intelligence, prokaryotes only have intelligence in comparison with creationists, a deplorably low standard.

\ You and your fellow evolutionists are in trouble, RWP, because your theory sucks. The more honest among you (Crick, Denton, Kauffman et al) have admitted it. It has an enormous and embarrassing gap that you can only fill by pleading 1) it came from somewhere else (which merely begs the question), or that something magical happened (the Santa Fe group), or by completely ignoring it as if ignorance were a sufficient explanation.\

You lie. Research groups all over the world are actively investigating the means by which life arose, and bridging the gap between abiogenetic origins and modern prokaryotic life forms.

And if you can't answer it, you'll be damned if you'll allow anyone else to try, hence these feeble screechings from your allies in the AMA and related bodies that are quite obviously attempting not to join the debate but to intimidate others into silence.

In the hysterical hyperbole of contemporary fundamentalist Christianity, an organization speaking out to defend the very intellectual core of what it represents is 'intimidation'. What a shame that in the last 20 years, the religious right has chosen to learn philosophy and tactics from the multiculti left, and nothing from the scientists who spend two decades fighting off multiculturalist encroachments, only to face the multicultis' tag team partner, Pat Robertson and his polydactylous cohorts.

It's the same as the church telling Galileo not to teach that the earth revolves around the sun, or at least to also teach the earth centric model. Do you think the science community should meet this with a half-hearted, ho-hum defense?

There is no theocracy in America pushing down Darwin as Aristotle did Gallileo. It were not the church itself, but followers of Aristotle within the church which insisted that "the heavier something is, the faster it falls".

The church then did not practice theology but Aristotelian theory and philosophy. It's just that the church had a monopoly over education.

And, by the way, Kopernic himself used the current theories to figure a way and it did not work.The errors and bad schools of the past were the things which when recognized and disproved help prove things and advance science.

Scientists should be busy trying to disproving ID rather than aborting the thought of it. Yet they are not scientists enough to do what they advocate to do, to let science itself decide.

Proof by the absurdity is always used, computer error algorithms are what enable us to manage bugs and incongruous requests by a user. Scientists should focus on developing critical methods and curriculae. But since this would mean a threat to their current stature as their own theories get ammended by smarter and younger ones, they don't want to...they violate Darwin's theory itself and sin.

25
posted on 12/03/2005 7:29:12 AM PST
by JudgemAll
(Condemn me, make me naked and kill me, or be silent for ever on my gun ownership and law enforcement)

Scientists should be busy trying to disproving ID rather than aborting the thought of it. Yet they are not scientists enough to do what they advocate to do, to let science itself decide.

You can't scientifically disprove ID. It's a religious Idea, not a scientific one. This point has been made so many times, by so many scientists, that it beggars the imagination it still hasn't sunk in to some people.

"How do you figure? It's the same as the church telling Galileo not to teach that the earth revolves around the sun, or at least to also teach the earth centric model. Do you think the science community should meet this with a half-hearted, ho-hum defense?"

The argument was between two different scientific theories one of which "the church" bought into .. so stop rewriting history.

"What were Galileo Galilei's conflicts with the Roman Catholic Church? It was not a simple conflict between science and religion, as usually portrayed. Rather it was a conflict between Copernican science and Aristotelian science which had become Church tradition. Galileo expressed his scientific views supporting Copernicus as well as his biblical views in a 1615 letter to the Grand Duchess of Tuscany ..." MORE

28
posted on 12/03/2005 7:36:02 AM PST
by Matchett-PI
( "History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid." -- Dwight Eisenhower)

When ID does something to increase the sum of human knowledge, they can put it in science class

Questioning has never been wrong if done fairly. This is what increases knowledge and our lot, not the Darwin theory itself as a sort of algorithm, but the questioning itself is the main "algorithm of the algorithms".

By the way, this is one of the worst articles ever in support of Darwinism. It's all about avoiding and forbiding the questions and debates around Darwinism and entitling a theory. It's about control of curriculum and making a fuss about ID when there is so much lies, distortions and stupid unscientific radical political cult teachers and curriculae out there.

A theory is not scientific if it is entitled. I defeats the purpose of science itself which for its own improvement cannot rely on entitlements. It's ridiculous that the AMA uses its sheer entitlement power and not reason to make their point. The most UNSCIENTIFIC screed ever and thus worst advocacy of Darwinism I have seen yet.

30
posted on 12/03/2005 7:46:44 AM PST
by JudgemAll
(Condemn me, make me naked and kill me, or be silent for ever on my gun ownership and law enforcement)

"It was Pasteur who indeed proved that life does not occur/evolve readily spontaneously, that it occured through infections. "Darwinists" of today are in fact more on the side of spontaneous generation cult that attacked the inventor of the vaccine himself than on the side of science." ~ Judgemall

Michael Crichton and I agree with you:

[HUGE SNIP]

...As the twentieth century drew to a close, the connection between hard scientific fact and public policy became increasingly elastic. In part this was possible because of the complacency of the scientific profession; in part because of the lack of good science education among the public; in part, because of the rise of specialized advocacy groups which have been enormously effective in getting publicity and shaping policy; and in great part because of the decline of the media as an independent assessor of fact.

The deterioration of the American media is dire loss for our country. When distinguished institutions like the New York Times can no longer differentiate between factual content and editorial opinion, but rather mix both freely on their front page, then who will hold anyone to a higher standard? ... [snip]

...At the conference in Washington, during the question period, Ehrlich was reminded that after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, scientists were quoted as saying nothing would grow there for 75 years, but in fact melons were growing the next year. So, he was asked, how accurate were these findings now?

Ehrlich answered by saying "I think they are extremely robust. Scientists may have made statements like that, although I cannot imagine what their basis would have been, even with the state of science at that time, but scientists are always making absurd statements, individually, in various places. What we are doing here, however, is presenting a consensus of a very large group of scientists "

I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had.

Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.

There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period.

In addition, let me remind you that the track record of the consensus is nothing to be proud of. Let's review a few cases.

In past centuries, the greatest killer of women was fever following childbirth . One woman in six died of this fever. In 1795, Alexander Gordon of Aberdeen suggested that the fevers were infectious processes, and he was able to cure them. The consensus said no. In 1843, Oliver Wendell Holmes claimed puerperal fever was contagious, and presented compellng evidence. The consensus said no. In 1849, Semmelweiss demonstrated that sanitary techniques virtually eliminated puerperal fever in hospitals under his management. The consensus said he was a Jew, ignored him, and dismissed him from his post. There was in fact no agreement on puerperal fever until the start of the twentieth century. Thus the consensus took one hundred and twenty five years to arrive at the right conclusion despite the efforts of the prominent "skeptics" around the world, skeptics who were demeaned and ignored. And despite the constant ongoing deaths of women.

There is no shortage of other examples. In the 1920s in America, tens of thousands of people, mostly poor, were dying of a disease called pellagra. The consensus of scientists said it was infectious, and what was necessary was to find the "pellagra germ." The US government asked a brilliant young investigator, Dr. Joseph Goldberger, to find the cause. Goldberger concluded that diet was the crucial factor. The consensus remained wedded to the germ theory. Goldberger demonstrated that he could induce the disease through diet. He demonstrated that the disease was not infectious by injecting the blood of a pellagra patient into himself, and his assistant. They and other volunteers swabbed their noses with swabs from pellagra patients, and swallowed capsules containing scabs from pellagra rashes in what were called "Goldberger's filth parties." Nobody contracted pellagra. The consensus continued to disagree with him. There was, in addition, a social factor-southern States disliked the idea of poor diet as the cause, because it meant that social reform was required. They continued to deny it until the 1920s. Result-despite a twentieth century epidemic, the consensus took years to see the light.

Probably every schoolchild notices that South America and Africa seem to fit together rather snugly, and Alfred Wegener proposed, in 1912, that the continents had in fact drifted apart. The consensus sneered at continental drift for fifty years. The theory was most vigorously denied by the great names of geology-until 1961, when it began to seem as if the sea floors were spreading. The result: it took the consensus fifty years to acknowledge what any schoolchild sees.

And shall we go on? The examples can be multiplied endlessly. Jenner and smallpox, Pasteur and germ theory. Saccharine, margarine, repressed memory, fiber and colon cancer, hormone replacement therap6y the list of consensus errors goes on and on.

Finally, I would remind you to notice where the claim of consensus is invoked. Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E=mc2. Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way.

But back to our main subject. ... [snip]

...In trying to think about how these questions can be resolved, it occurs to me that in the progression from SETI to nuclear winter to second hand smoke to global warming, we have one clear message, and that is that we can expect more and more problems of public policy dealing with technical issues in the future-problems of ever greater seriousness, where people care passionately on all sides.

And at the moment we have no mechanism to get good answers. So I will propose one.

Just as we have established a tradition of double-blinded research to determine drug efficacy, we must institute double-blinded research in other policy areas as well. Certainly the increased use of computer models, such as GCMs, cries out for the separation of those who make the models from those who verify them. The fact is that the present structure of science is entrepeneurial, with individual investigative teams vying for funding from organizations which all too often have a clear stake in the outcome of the research-or appear to, which may be just as bad.

This is not healthy for science.

Sooner or later, we must form an independent research institute in this country. It must be funded by industry, by government, and by private philanthropy, both individuals and trusts. The money must be pooled, so that investigators do not know who is paying them.

The institute must fund more than one team to do research in a particular area, and the verification of results will be a foregone requirement: teams will know their results will be checked by other groups. In many cases, those who decide how to gather the data will not gather it, and those who gather the data will not analyze it. ....[snip]

I believe that as we come to the end of this litany, some of you may be saying, well what is the big deal, really. So we made a few mistakes. So a few scientists have overstated their cases and have egg on their faces. So what.

Well, I'll tell you.

In recent years, much has been said about the post modernist claims about science to the effect that science is just another form of raw power, tricked out in special claims for truth-seeking and objectivity that really have no basis in fact. Science, we are told, is no better than any other undertaking. These ideas anger many scientists, and they anger me. But recent events have made me wonder if they are correct. We can take as an example the scientific reception accorded a Danish statistician, Bjorn Lomborg, who wrote a book called The Skeptical Environmentalist.

The scientific community responded in a way that can only be described as disgraceful. In professional literature, it was complained he had no standing because he was not an earth scientist. His publisher, Cambridge University Press, was attacked with cries that the editor should be fired, and that all right-thinking scientists should shun the press.

The past president of the AAAS wondered aloud how Cambridge could have ever "published a book that so clearly could never have passed peer review." )But of course the manuscript did pass peer review by three earth scientists on both sides of the Atlantic, and all recommended publication.) But what are scientists doing attacking a press? Is this the new McCarthyism-coming from scientists?

Worst of all was the behavior of the Scientific American, which seemed intent on proving the post-modernist point that it was all about power, not facts. The Scientific American attacked Lomborg for eleven pages, yet only came up with nine factual errors despite their assertion that the book was "rife with careless mistakes." It was a poor display featuring vicious ad hominem attacks, including comparing him to a Holocust denier.

The issue was captioned: "Science defends itself against the Skeptical Environmentalist." Really. Science has to defend itself? Is this what we have come to?

When Lomborg asked for space to rebut his critics, he was given only a page and a half. When he said it wasn't enough, he put the critics' essays on his web page and answered them in detail. Scientific American threatened copyright infringement and made him take the pages down.

Further attacks since have made it clear what is going on. Lomborg is charged with heresy. That's why none of his critics needs to substantiate their attacks in any detail. That's why the facts don't matter. That's why they can attack him in the most vicious personal terms. He's a heretic.

Of course, any scientist can be charged as Galileo was charged. I just never thought I'd see the Scientific American in the role of mother church.

Is this what science has become? I hope not. But it is what it will become, unless there is a concerted effort by leading scientists to aggressively separate science from policy. The late Philip Handler, former president of the National Academy of Sciences, said that "Scientists best serve public policy by living within the ethics of science, not those of politics. If the scientific community will not unfrock the charlatans, the public will not discern the difference-science and the nation will suffer." Personally, I don't worry about the nation. But I do worry about science.

If I fly an airplane and do not do it properly, I die. I live by my faith in my skills. The religious does the same. He certainly cannot prove analyticaly readily that God exist, but he can live by God and die by God, and that is acceptable proof or "honest to God" trial of value in science.

Scientists work in labs, and they never live by what they do. I know aero engineers who are afraid of flying airplanes, yet believe they have seniority above pilots.

If scientists lived by evolution they'd die, they'd never make it as scientists, that, I can tell you that for sure. What does it say about their confidence in their own "proven" theory? And GUESS WHAT! It is the occultic and superstitious who themselves make others go through their alchemies and experiments.

I find it strange that both the superstitious and the occultic have the same general lack of ethics:

1. they do not live by their science, they make others do so

2. they have a conflict of interest between their domain/job and their request to have such funded by the government. They assume they can be judge of how much money they should get.

33
posted on 12/03/2005 7:57:26 AM PST
by JudgemAll
(Condemn me, make me naked and kill me, or be silent for ever on my gun ownership and law enforcement)

...It's the same as the church telling Galileo not to teach that the earth revolves around the sun, or at least to also teach the earth centric model. ...

Wrong. Its like Galileo dictating to the church that because the Earth revolves without strings attached, that they can't teach that God set it in motion. Its amazing how quickly scientific-free-thinkers are to squash even the airing of apposing views. Can't science stand on its own?

Again: ID theory does NOT stand in opposition to most of evolutionary theory. ID theory addresses critical flaws in evolutionary theory that its materialist priesthood lacks the tools and intellectual desire to tackle.

Evolutionary theory is necessarily founded on the assumption that the universe has always existed (not in the Einsteinian sense, but the Newtonian sense). Evolutionary theory needs a forever universe in which to have sufficient time for random chance to do its magic.

It was the work of Einstein and modern physicists that destroyed the forever universe piffle and conceit of the evolutionists. The spectacular COBE results have since confirmed the existence of a cooling universe that was infinitely hot and dense less than 20 billion years ago. The forever universe is no more. That's a development that evolutionists desperately wish had never come along.

Geologists and geophysicists (Ward, Brownlee et al) have since pointed out the astonishing confluence of precise balances of physical forces that must exist to allow advanced life to flourish on earth. How did this happen in such an incredibly short span of time (less than 20 billion years)? Evolutionists have no answer. Their theory is too small and worldview too cramped to allow them to even address the question.

However, if we merely look around us (and isn't observation the prime imperative of the scientific method?) we see that human beings are able to plan and implement analogously intricate and precise balances in short time spans in laboratory and industrial settings. Is this a random and aimless process? Does a space shuttle appear by mankind waiting for one to appear organically from the soil through the action of survival of the fittest? No. Rather, human beings design a plant in which the conditions can be precisely controlled for materials to be brought together to form a completed vehicle. And they do this how? By employing organizing intelligence.

The influence of an organizing intelligence is the only force we know of in the material world that can balance the forces and create initial conditions necessary to allow something as complex as human life and derivative products ranging from arrowheads to space shuttles to form.

ID theory honestly and straightforwardly proffers by way of analogy that the best inference we can make about the existence of life is that an organizing intelligence set the initial conditions and devised the plans necessary for life to arise and evolve to the levels of present day complexity. It is the most logical and rational way, based on our observations, to explain how we got to where we are in less than 20 billion years.

ID theory makes no attempt to name or identify this organizing intelligence, although some ID adherents privately and personally might choose to identify the intelligence as Logos.

Evolutionists, on the other hand, quite clearly name and identify their organizing deity. It is none other than Chaos. Sadly for them, Chaos is only adequate to the task in a universe other than the universe that modern physics has disclosed to us.

You confuse faith/religious-belief and superstition/occutism. If I fly an airplane and do not do it properly, I die. I live by my faith in my skills. The religious does the same. He certainly cannot prove analyticaly readily that God exist, but he can live by God and die by God, and that is acceptable proof or "honest to God" trial of value in science. Scientists work in labs, and they never live by what they do. I know aero engineers who are afraid of flying airplanes, yet believe they have seniority above pilots.

Wrong. Its like Galileo dictating to the church that because the Earth revolves without strings attached, that they can't teach that God set it in motion. Its amazing how quickly scientific-free-thinkers are to squash even the airing of apposing views. Can't science stand on its own?

"Evolutionary theory is necessarily founded on the assumption that the universe has always existed (not in the Einsteinian sense, but the Newtonian sense). Evolutionary theory needs a forever universe in which to have sufficient time for random chance to do its magic."

Nope. Natural selection is not random. Neither are the laws of nature.

"It was the work of Einstein and modern physicists that destroyed the forever universe piffle and conceit of the evolutionists. The spectacular COBE results have since confirmed the existence of a cooling universe that was infinitely hot and dense less than 20 billion years ago. The forever universe is no more. That's a development that evolutionists desperately wish had never come along."

Horse manure. The universe is far older than was ever considered by Darwin. In his day, the earth was supposed to be in the millions, not billions of years old.

"Geologists and geophysicists (Ward, Brownlee et al) have since pointed out the astonishing confluence of precise balances of physical forces that must exist to allow advanced life to flourish on earth. How did this happen in such an incredibly short span of time (less than 20 billion years)? Evolutionists have no answer. Their theory is too small and worldview too cramped to allow them to even address the question."

Evolution doesn't address the origins of life. Evolutionary biologists have *no answer* because the question is outside their theory. Try abiogenesis.

"ID theory makes no attempt to name or identify this organizing intelligence, although some ID adherents privately and personally might choose to identify the intelligence as Logos."

They do more than that, they refuse to say ANYTHING about the nature of the alleged designer. It can be anything and everything you can imagine. It has absolutely ZERO scientific value.

" Evolutionists, on the other hand, quite clearly name and identify their organizing deity. It is none other than Chaos."

This shows an incredible lack of knowledge on your part.

43
posted on 12/03/2005 8:34:44 AM PST
by CarolinaGuitarman
("There is a grandeur in this view of life...")

Historically you mean?? If only that is what I had said. Poor Galileo's plight is getting a little long in the tooth to allow modern scientists to go running for the protection of his martyr's robes every time they are challenged. My point is that scientific hysteria over ID is "like" any other hysteria. And scientists acting dismissive is the same as anyone else doing it. Anyone who has to bolster their argument by silencing the opposition, is afraid of their own position's strength (or lack thereof).

What could scientists do that would disprove the theory of evolution? Not all scientific theories are falsifiable. That is why falsifiability is no longer a demarcation criterion in the philosophy of science.

-A8

45
posted on 12/03/2005 8:43:46 AM PST
by adiaireton8
("There is no greater evil one can suffer than to hate reasonable discourse." - Plato, Phaedo 89d)

"The A.M.A. is a self-serving political whore. I've been practicing medicine for 26 years and I've yet to hear anything really substantive (that I agree with) come out of that forum." ~ Dawgmeister

You, and most other informed people who don't have a personal agenda to advance.

Shrinking AMA Calls the Shots on Anti-gun Policy

WASHINGTON  Despite a declining membership, the American Medical Association is having significant success with its campaign to infuse politically correct anti-gun propaganda into the mainstream of the medical profession.

Many patients are startled to find their doctors asking them if they have any guns in the house. Because this is a matter related less to medicine and more to politics and household safety, many patients are simply refusing to answer. In some cases, they are telling their doctors to back off, according to letter writers responding to NewsMax.coms previous report on the issue.

Falling Membership

Compounding the irony is that this entire campaign is driven by an organization whose numbers are shrinking. AMA, once the respected voice of the mainstream of the medical profession, has become just another left-wing interest group. Declining membership does not prevent AMA from presuming to speak for all doctors or from aggressively weaving its leftist dogma into the doctor-patient relationship.

Dr. Lyle Thorstenson, an ophthalmologist from Nacogdoches, Texas, told Physicians Weekly that AMA gains 30,000 members a year and loses 33,000. At this rate, he says, it will be left with no members by 2023.

Further, recent trends have indicated that of those enrolled in AMA, only about 60 percent have been full members. The rest are mostly students and residents, says the weekly.

Michael Perrone, an assistant to a member of the New Jersey Legislature, tells NewsMax.com that his own investigation revealed AMA's membership has nose-dived (in part because of scandals that have wracked the organization) from a huge majority of the nations doctors in the 1960s to only about 30 percent today.

And even that low figure, he says, is inflated with "thousands of free memberships, including thousands of medical students.

A Good Way to Lose Business

What, then, would motivate an organization that has its hands full with internal problems to stick its nose into whether you opt to exercise your Second Amendment rights to own firearms and keep them in your home for your own protection? In some instances, doctors who have followed AMAs line have lost patients in the process. [snip] Click link below to continue.

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